This Administrative Law: Cases and Materials casebook is organized around two basic themes: understanding judicial monitoring of administrative action and understanding the law regulating internal administrative decisionmaking. Intertwined with these broad themes are some other crucial concepts such as the limitations on empowerment (e.g., separation of powers which is covered as it relates to judicial challenges) or political controls (e.g., legislative oversight which is covered as it relates to rulemaking and the limits on influence). The choice of concentration is driven by the realities of administrative practice: administrative lawyers spend most of their time in court challenging administrative action or in the agencies attempting to affect that action. While administrative law encompasses other significant types of issues, the training of administrative lawyers must focus on these two areas.
This casebook presents the subject of administrative law as a practical, "applied" legal discipline. The central vehicle for carrying forward that philosophy is a simulation or extended hypothetical. The simulation presents a foundation scenario built around one fictitious agency, the Wine Trade Commission. Administrative law issues are confronted in the context of the regulatory mission of that agency, its staff, and those who must practice before it. This agency is created and organized by the fictitious Wine Trade Commission Act, and this "enabling" Act provides an important tool in answering administrative law questions. |
